Tag Archives: Committed Relationship

I’m not really sure where this post is going to go. I just know that my heart hurts right now and I need to get something out before I go crazy.

I recently lost someone. Someone who means a damn lot to me. Worse, I chose to give them up, just as equally as they chose to let me go. I’m talking about a case where A Day to Remember’s If It Means A Lot To You lyrics sort of speak to your soul and make you both want to bawl your eyes out and slam your fist into a wall, but instead, you just listen to the song on repeat and wonder how your life has come to emulate it so utterly.

My heart hurts. I miss them. A helluva lot. I miss having conversations with them and nerding out, getting headshots left and right (whaddup, co-oping Borderlands), staying up way too late watching YouTube and having Star Trek marathons. I miss having someone I talked to a daily basis. I miss looking forward to going over to their place and having that feeling of…well, home, frankly, when I was with them. I miss the way their nose would crinkle when they were trying to make me blush or the way their lips felt against mine. I miss being challenged by them, having my views expanded and my comfort zone stretched. I miss them being the sci-fi to my fantasy, the Darth Vader to my Sauron.

You know, ironically, writing that out isn’t helping me miss them less, like I was hoping this post might.

*tries again*

It was…amazing. And I was happy. He was everything that I wanted: someone who listened to me, supported me, challenged me, connected with me. Yet he wasn’t what I needed–no, that’s not right. I know he could have been what I needed and hell, still has the capabilities of doing so. But he’s not ready to be what I need. For what we had was amazing, but it wasn’t serious. It wasn’t exclusive. It wasn’t a relationship.

And I need that.

It makes me feel selfish, that rationale. That because we weren’t exclusive, because we weren’t in a committed relationship, I had to let a good thing go. A good person go. That choice made me reevaluate my wants and needs and desires and hell, even get pissed at myself for being so traditional; for wanting that old-fashioned relationship.

I mean, what does that even really mean?

Because frankly, to me, I already had many aspects of what I imagine a relationship to be like, without the title. But it’s not the title I wanted. It was the promise that comes with commitment. It was being chosen by that other person. It was them saying, “You know what? I like you enough that I’d rather be with you than any other person. I want to try and create a future with you. And I want the world to know how much I care about you. How much I adore you. How proud I am to be with you.”

And after would come all the fun milestones and experiences I’ve never had, being eternally and utterly single. Going on dates. Changing your FB status to in a relationship and everyone gushing and asking you questions and begging to meet him. The meeting each other friends and integrating friend groups. The awkward meeting-the-family-for-the-first time dinner. The holiday parties with extended families. That first roadtrip together. The plethora of pictures, surprising each other with good luck notes in the morning, making dinner, the lazy weekends and the fun nights out.

And that’s just the start, I imagine. It gets even more exciting–and more serious–the longer you choose one another. Getting a pet. The moving-in-together convo. Watching each other’s personalities and desires evolve and change. Growing together. Life changes, like careers and finding a forever home. Marriage talk. Kid possibilities (or maybe not, who knows).

And then there are the little things throughout it all that are just as important as the big things. The being there for each other through every up and down. The taking care of one another when your sick or both skipping a day at work just because it’s been a busy week and you missed each other. The surprise notes, the kind gestures, the fancy dates just because. The little fights, the arguments, the compromises, the tough choices.

I want it all. I want every aspect of a relationship. Because I’m sorta definitely a hopeless romantic. I believe that love conquers everything (hell, the saying is tattooed on me). I’ve believed in love for so long and never had the chance to experience it, that I now have a very big, eager heart that I don’t want anymore. I want to trust it to someone else. And I want to take care of theirs instead and show them just how much a person can be loved. That’s what I need.

Unfortunately, my needs didn’t align with his wants. And so I made a really hard choice and I gave him up. And it hurts. It hurts knowing that if I had made a different choice, if I had swallowed those desires and instead stayed content with what I had, I’d still have those conversations, that connection, that feeling of home in another person. But that would be unfair to both of us. And no matter how much I miss him (it’s almost embarrassing, how much I miss him), we both deserve to have our needs and our wants met.

So it’s going to be hard, for a while. Not only getting used to being alone again, but getting used to not having such an important presence in my life. My only solution is to pour myself into a lot of things (distract myself, honestly). Working out, most definitely (main benefit of having a broken heart is that I usually run a shit-ton afterwards, so at least I’m looking more and more like a BAMF in the process of healing). And writing. I’ll definitely be focusing on writing a lot and transitioning into pursuing that as a career, not a hobby.

As far as love goes, I have no idea what will happen next. Whether the man I let go will one day want to pursue a relationship with me (and maybe I’m still be available and one day, we’ll laugh about what we went through to get there). Maybe I find someone new or date ten different people before I find the person stuck with me. Or maybe I become the most badass dog lady you’ve ever damn known… whose to say and whose to know? For now, I know one thing, one person, who I’ve neglected loving for too long and who, honestly, deserves my love the most.

Myself.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Work on myself, work on loving myself, until I’m a person that I both love and understand.